The History of Chalalán

The indigenous community of San José de Uchupiamonas had come to terms with its lack of development at the beginning of the 1990s when poverty and the government’s lack of interest in health, education, basic services and access to our region became very evident. In the 1980s 40 families from our community migrated in search of a better standard of living, which made us realise that we would never receive help from the government nor any credit facilities and so we were forced to face the future on our own. We decided to create our own project whose main aim would be to improve the living conditions of our community but we knew that was only a dream as long as we had no concrete guarantee to offer the banks.

In the 1990s we started to ask ourselves: How can we make sure that our community does not disappear? How do we find employment opportunities and improve the living conditions of our people? Looking at the legacy that our ancestors had left us – the forests, animals, rivers and lakes – we decided on ECOLOGICAL TOURISM. Our sights were set and the task of saving our culture and land passed into the hands of a generation committed to a long struggle. Our idea was to construct rustic, traditional Tacana-style cabins by the shores of the magical Chalalán Lagoon.

The CHALALÁN Project began on 28 February 1992, with no money but an incredible amount of faith and hope in our ability to work towards a better future for our children. Along the way we made many Bolivian, Dutch, Norwegian and American friends who joined our cause. Joseph Ginsberg, an Israeli, thanked our community after being rescued in the Tuíchi valley saying on 23 December, 1992, "I will never forget or stop thanking you. I was born in Israel but I believe I was reborn on the beaches of Progreso near San José. I feel Bolivian and it would be an honour for me now to be a Josesano ". He began to seek financing to promote the community project and managed to contact the representatives of Conservation International and through them contact the Interamerican Development Bank.

The Project was up and running along with the search for financing but we needed more support which came in the form of Mr James D. Nations, Conservation International’s Latin America Vice President, who wrote the following about his visit to San José de Uchupiamonas, "In all of my working days I have never seen such a desire to protect the environment. I will never forget seeing such respect and love for life and meeting wonderful people”.

His visit was very positive for our community and his desire to support our cause led Conservation International Washington to support the Project and negotiate with the IDB, which ended up with the Non-Refundable Technical Cooperation agreement ATN/ME-4757-BO for the “Sustainable Development and Ecotourism in San José de Uchupiamonas Programme” being signed in 1995 and the setting up of the Madidi National Park using funding from the Multilateral Investment Fund .

Had we not taken quick and decisive actions, our community (culture and land) would have disappeared forever.